Thursday, March 1, 2012

THE POWER OF CLOTHING- INDEPTH-

Adam and Eve were initially created without skin, they were covered in light. They lived an eternal existence. They live in complete truth, the world of Gan Adan. This was a world of clarity. When they sinned, Hashem enclosed them in skin.

That skin protected their deep internal light, which they no longer merited to use. Skin was created as a bonding agent to filter our deep internal light; however the inner light has the capacity to resurface in order for us to access some of our inner depth.

Furthermore, the Torah describes the value of clothing as a bonding force. Because we cannot handle the power of our skin as a bonding agent, we wear clothing to act as a new bonding agent. Clothing gives us some access to our inner soul and bonds us. Clothing also acts as a filter. Essentially, clothing acts as both a filter, which bonds a person and gives him the proper amount of access to his inner depth, while simultaneously, blocking his inner truth from being destroyed by the external world.

We have to get dressed and clothe ourselves. The Torah is indicating that Hashem has given us a mechanism which we can bond with the external world. We express our internal self through the way we dress. From the clothing we wear, we are expressing to the world who our inner self really is. When people see how we are dressed, they will make a judgment and then they will create an awareness of our individual status. When people are naked, we cannot see who they are. In order to use clothing as a bonding agent we need to make sure we dress appropriately and in accordance of who we are. Based on assessing one’s dress (aka one’s inner self) people will then decide whether they want to create a bond with us or not.

Furthermore, Hashem dressed the world. The Rambam writes, the whole purpose of the physical world is that one should look at the beauty of physical world, because it will allow him to gain some understanding of Hashem. However, we have lost the art of dressing according to who we are and how we feel. We dress according to fashion. Fashion has corrupted this beautiful mechanism of bonding in a way that people don’t dress in a way that expresses who they are. Essentially, we dress according to how the world is telling us to dress.

Thankfully, there is hope. We can reclaim the inner depth within by not focusing on the external world. How exactly do we get to this inner place? We can assess this inner place with – Shteecka- the idea of silence. By finding one’s deep inner pool and meditating on it, one will come to understand himself (women have this ability more than men). We must protect ourselves from the external world by figuring out who we are, rather than allowing society to identify us. In order to protect ourselves from the influences of the outside world, one should try to remove as much attention from himself as possible. For example, religious men wear all black- to de-emphasis the ‘fashion experience.’ We must learn to dress in a way that is attractive, but not attracting. By dressing in a noble and elegant manner we can express the royalty within.

The main concept to focus on is that dress is a form of expression and you need to use it to express you deepest inner self. However, the forces of fashion surround us and constantly try to corrupt us by telling us how to dress. We have lost our inner light and need to salvage it by dressing in a way that is attractive and not attracting, to show there is a deeper essence within. From this, we can see why Hashem has given us such elaborate instructions and details on the garments of the Kohanim. In order for the light before the sin to penetrate through, his garments must physically represent his internal truth.